By the end of this section you should be able to: ● understand how to work with surds
Surds are used to write irrational numbers precisely. Irrational numbers cannot be written exactly in decimal form because the decimals of irrational numbers do not terminate or recur.
When we can’t simplify a number to remove a square root (or cube root, etc.) then it is a surd.
The square root of a number, n , written as √
2 , is the number that gives n when multiplied by itself.
n1 __
Multiplying surds: When we multiply surds, we multiply the coeffi cients, keep the surd and then multiply the numbers under the root symbol.